1. Field
One embodiment of the invention relates to a broadcast receiving apparatus to be controlled by a client terminal when acquiring contents from a server by way of a network, a broadcast receiving method to be used under the control of the client terminal and a broadcast receiving system for receiving broadcasts under the control of a client terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
As is well known, the guidelines proposed by the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) on the basis of UPnP (universal plug and play) techniques have been adopted as standards for transmitting and receiving video contents by way of networks such as LANs (local area networks).
According to the standards, client terminals called DMAs (digital media adapters) are provided for users to acquire desired contents from any of various servers that are typically formed by PCs (personal computers) and HDDs (hard disk drives)
A client terminal has a function of selectively accessing any of various servers for data communications by way of a network and also a function of operating for data communications with television receiving sets by way of a digital interface typically conforming to the HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) Standards.
Thus, the client terminal has a function of accessing a specific server by way of a network to acquire desired contents according to the user's operation and transmitting the acquired contents to a television receiving set by way of a digital interface to have it display images and reproduce sounds.
Meanwhile, in a system where the contents acquired by a client terminal are viewed on a television receiving set, the same television set is selectively operated for viewing the contents acquired from a server by means of a client terminal and receiving and viewing a television broadcast program.
For this reason, the user is required to do an operation of switching the input mode of the television receiving set from the digital interface side to the broadcast receiving side or vice versa each time he or she views the contents acquired from a server by means of the client terminal or the television broadcast program.
Additionally, the user is required to operate the remote controller of the client terminal when the user selects a server or contents by means of the client terminal, whereas the user is required to operate the remote controller of the television receiving set when he or she selects a television broadcast channel. This is a cumbersome operation on the part of the user.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 10-051703 discloses an arrangement of compressing and transversally synthetically combining the video signal acquired from a television broadcast and the video signal acquired from the Internet so as to display either the video signal acquired from the television broadcast or the video signal acquired from the Internet on the display screen of a television set in a switched manner.